Costumes

Friday, 15 June 2012

Medieval Festival in Lund

Last
weekend we went to an event in Lund,
a two day festival. I had made one more shirt and two more bibs for B, and a
simple, but slightly creepy looking cloth doll, which is a good and rather
liked chewing toy.

I also started on
another cotte for him on Thursday, and finished it on Saturday, as he was
taking a nap in my lap. It’s partially lined with linen as his other cotte, and
closes with seven cloth buttons. It’s made from the little fabric left from
making my yellow kirtle, and Tobias’ yellow liripipe hood.

The site
for the event, a park in the town, was a rather nice one, large enough not to
feel crowded, but small enough to not make the distances too great. It’s
location in the town was good in that it made it easy for lots of people to
come to the festival, but less good in that we had our night sleep disturbed by
loud passers by once or twice (the most memorable being some kids shouting
something about the Lord of the Rings when startled by stumbling on our camp). The
park has plenty of beautiful old trees, and during the early morning and late
evening hours, animals came out to graze. One very big hare in particular
caught our interest.

Picture by my father in law, J.W.

The weather
was good for the most part. The rain poured down just as we were driving to the
sight, and a few drops fell as we pitched our tents, but up till the hour before
the event closed, we hardly had any rain at all. The temperature was a bit
tricky though. At times it was quite hot, at least in the sun, so B wore
nothing but linens, but at other times, wool was very comfortable to wear. I
put B in modern tights and/or needlebound socks when it was cooler, as well as
his cotte and, occasionally, hood.

Picture by my father in law, J.W.

As with
most medieval festivals in Sweden,
it’s more of a children’s festival with a “medieval” theme than giving a good
representation of how a medieval market might have looked like. The same is the
case with the visitors. The majority is wearing modern clothes, of course, and
most of the people dressed up look more like something escaped from a Disney
movie than anything remotely medieval. Apparently, anything not glaringly mainstream
21st century has got to be medieval. Ah well. Some people were doing
a pretty good job, and a couple of times our eyes were gladdened by the sight
of a few truly well dressed people. Tobias jokingly compared ours being the only group
truly trying to be period with us being like the early Christian missionaries
coming into the Nordic countries to convert the heathen.

Picture by my father in law, J.W.

I don’t mind it being
a children’s festival, but I do mind that the organizers claim they aim for
everything to be as period as possible, when most things are not. A greater
knowledge of history is clearly needed on their part.

We as a
group had a good time though, as always with such lovely people; cooking,
mending equipment, working on our different crafts, and in the case of me,
Tobias and another couple of parents, tending to our babies. B was an angel,
being in a good mood most of the time, sleeping well during the nights (warm
and cosy in two layers of clothes, warm socks, mittens, a winter hat, sleeping
with me on our big straw mattress, sharing my blankets, with Tobias on our
narrow straw mattress right on his other side), and tolerably well during the
days. He looked adorable in his little outfit, and he and the other baby must
have been our best attractions, poor things.

Picture by my father in law, J.W.

Tobias took
part in the weapon and fighting lectures, worked in the camp and was generally
agreeable, which is more than what could be said for me.

Picture by my father in law, J.W.

I was very
tired, my back hurt like mad, and B wanted to be in my arms most of the time
(not surprising with so many strangers and so many new things going on around
him all day), so I missed quite a lot of what happened, couldn't help with the work in the camp, and all these things
combined made me rather cross. On Saturday evening the tiredness and back ache
was so bad I claimed I would stay at home from our next event, and never do
living history again. Ever. Of course, by the following morning, after some
sleep and subsiding of the pain, I thought living history the most charming
hobby in the world.

Picture by my father in law, J.W.

There is something very agreeable about hearing wood being
chopped, and smelling the smoke from the fire as you’re getting up. Wearing
wool dresses in the cool morning hours as the sun is rising and drying the dew
from the grass, conversing with friends – it really is a pleasure. I’m still ashamed
of my bad temper and poor behaviour though.

Lessons
learned:

- Bring a
baby sling next time, to save your back. I had planned to buy twill linen or
hemp for one (the ones we have being far from period), but the trader didn’t
have the fabric I wanted with them, but on another festival, in Norway. Too
bad.

- Put B on
a blanket more. I did this when possible, but as the weather had been less than
fine all week, the ground was damp, and as we were using all of our blankets
when sleeping, I didn’t want to get them wet. So, bring an extra blanket next
time, and avoid back ache.

- Bibs are
good (if we hadn’t had any, we’d have had to change B’s clothes a number of
times), but having enough of them is better. We had to wash bibs several times,
to make sure there was a clean and dry one when needed. I finished a new one
yesterday.

- Something
to cover the nappy is a good idea. Not necessary, but a good idea if there is
time and energy to make it. With such a small child, the cotte or shirt rides
up easily. Most visitors don’t mind (they’d probably have minded much more had
we used period cloth nappies), but it would look better.

- Bring
chocolate. Combating a bad mood is easier if your blood sugar is not too low.
Raisins did a tolerable job, but chocolate being chocolate, it always cheers
you up, no matter what the cause of your bad temper :)

- Don’t
stress with last minute projects. Begin in good time, so you’re not stressed
and tired as the event starts. Consider if the item you want to make really is essential,
or would just be nice to have. If a project has you stressed from running out
of time, drop it. It’ll make you more relaxed as the event starts. This one I’m
not very good at…

It's amazing how things can be so similar on the other side of Europe (I'm writting from Portugal:) - 1) the organizers claiming they have the most rigorous feast ever (while some elfs pass on the background...) and 2) the tipical last minute project stress! :D

Hi! I was wondering if you could point me towards a tutorial for making buttons go partway down the chest like the seven-button yellow tunic you made for your baby? I've been looking everywhere for a method to make it like that and all the tutorials deal with only spiral lacing and not buttons. It's very confusing to me since the material needs to overlap for buttons. Any help you can give me will be wonderful! Thanks in advance,-Lisa